


Five Times Sheldon and Amy Didn't Meet...And One Time They Did

by FoxPhile, Lionne, LostInTheSun, Musickat18, WeBuiltThePyramids, xmarisolx



Category: The Big Bang Theory (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, five times fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-06
Updated: 2013-06-06
Packaged: 2017-12-14 02:06:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/831475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FoxPhile/pseuds/FoxPhile, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lionne/pseuds/Lionne, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LostInTheSun/pseuds/LostInTheSun, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Musickat18/pseuds/Musickat18, https://archiveofourown.org/users/WeBuiltThePyramids/pseuds/WeBuiltThePyramids, https://archiveofourown.org/users/xmarisolx/pseuds/xmarisolx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five early near-misses between the Shamy, and the time they finally came face to face.  Spoilers for Seasons 1 – 3.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Hamburger Postulate

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is part a collaboration between fanfic writers FoxPhile, Lionne6, LostInTheSun, Musickat18, WeBuiltThePyramids, and XMarisolX. Each author has written a chapter that, together, make up the collection. It was inspired by a fantastic idea Lio came up with during a discussion in the Shamy thread at Fanforum.  
>  **Disclaimer:** _The Big Bang Theory_ is an American sitcom created by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady, and is produced by them along with Steve Molaro. It is a Warner Brothers production and airs on CBS. All characters, plots and creative elements derived from the source material belong exclusively to their respective owners. The authors of this fan fiction, do not, in any way, profit monetarily from the story.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the way home from work, Leonard and a disgruntled Sheldon stop by the instrument shop so Leonard can purchase new cello strings. A missing scene based on the Episode 1.05, “The Hamburger Postulate.”

Getting into the car after work, Leonard buckled himself in and silently scoured his memory for something— _anything_ —new along the route he and Sheldon took home.  Most days, they entertained themselves by playing one of their favorite road games, and if they were going to play I Spy again, it wouldn’t be easy; they’d “spied” every leaf, building, and port-a-potty that could possibly be seen.  They were pulling out of the parking lot when Sheldon suddenly spoke.

“Leonard,” he said, his voice sharp with displeasure, “I went down to the campus library today and—predictably—had a positively _loathsome_ conversation with Mrs. Carpelli.”

Of course, some days, they just bitched about how rough the day had been.

“Hopefully this time,” Leonard said, “you referred to her as the Media Center Specialist and not the ‘book babysitter.”

“I did,” Sheldon replied, “although frankly I don’t know what all the fuss was about.  I was being generous, if you ask me; I don’t believe she even does _that_.”

“Regardless, you have to call people by their official titles, Sheldon.”

“Well, little good it did me,” Sheldon said. “She still demonstrated her classic, obstinate, arrogant attitude.”

“I guess it takes one to know one,” Leonard muttered.  The statement earned him a harsh look.

“With friends like you, Leonard, I often ask myself why I even bother with mortal enemies at all.”

Leonard exhaled deeply, and then pursed his lips. “Fine.  What happened?”

“Well,” Sheldon began, “I simply told her that I found it nothing short of reprehensible that among the library’s catalog—and audaciously housed among _children’s_ literature, to boot—was a tale that not only endorsed midday sloth and the consumption of cottage cheese—the rankest food in the world—but that additionally terrified young children through the insertion of a monstrous arachnid.  I implored her to extricate the horrid tale from the library immediately.”

“What did she say?” Leonard asked.

“She didn’t even consider my suggestion.”

“The nerve!” Leonard said, sarcasm dripping from each word. 

“Indeed,” Sheldon said. “That kind of inflexibility has no place in a service position.”

“Well, if I’m being honest,” Leonard said, “I’m pretty sure you’re the only person in the world that has a problem with the nursery rhyme Little Miss Muffet.”

Sheldon scoffed at the notion.  “Nonsense.  It is a grisly tale that has haunted arachnophobes for centuries. I guess next you’ll have me believe that I’m ‘the only person in the world’ outraged that Caltech’s wi-fi only extends to a few feet outside the building.”

Leonard considered it a moment. “Actually, that kinda makes sense to me.  During last week’s fire drill, I couldn’t even check my MySpace page on my iPod.”

Sheldon was incensed.  “Well, rest assured that tomorrow I’ll be filing a formal complaint with the IT depar—HOLD ON!”

Startled, Leonard looked over at his riding companion, whose face and entire demeanor were plagued with his trademark brand of exaggerated horror. 

“What?!” Leonard asked.

“We’re going the wrong way.”

 “Actually, we’re not,” Leonard said.

“We most certainly are. Even _you_ should know that the shortest distance between any two points is a straight line, and this circuitous route is anything but. Granted, truly taking the shortest route would require us to plow through various homes in that residential subdivision to our left and, even if we were to survive the incident, we would be in considerable financial and legal trouble, a fact which obliges us to follow the shortest route possible _while_ still complying with government-sanctioned roads. That means we should have gone down Avery Street and then made a left onto Maines Blvd before finally veering off onto Los Robles Ave.”

“You’re right.  That is the shortest route home,” Leonard said.

“I know it is.”

“Only thing is,” Leonard said, “we’re not going home.”

Sheldon snapped his head to Leonard.  “Then where are we going?” His question was answered before it was scarcely out of his mouth.

“Here,” Leonard said, and pulled off into a parking lot.  A glowing neon sign above the building read “Blix Music Emporium.”

* * *

“Hey, Sam,” Leslie said as she entered the building.  A jingle bell sounded as the door shut behind her.  The store’s owner—a man in his early thirties, crowned with a disheveled mop of coal black hair and wearing a grey Henley with camouflage cargo shorts—came out from the supply room.

“Hey Leslie,” he said, leaning on the counter.  “How’ve you been?”

“Professionally, I’ve had some real successes lately,” she answered, nodding.

“Cool,” Sam said.

“Though, personally,” Leslie continued, “I’ve been largely sexually frustrated.”

“Er…”

“Despite the proliferation of penises in my field, suitable sexual partners are very hard to come by.”

Sam dry heaved a little at that unwelcomed detail.  “Um, you can just say ‘fine’ next time.”

“Noted,” Leslie said.  “And how’s the little bastard?”

“If you are referring to my son and, uh, your _nephew_ ,” Sam said.  “He’s fine.”

“Great.  That’s good to hear.”

“Also, and I’m pretty sure I’ve said this before, I’d prefer it if you called him by his _name_ and not by the fact that me and his mom aren’t together.”

Leslie lifted her head slightly, somehow surprised.  “Oh,” she said.  “You mean the fact that I called him a bastard?  Well you should know that some of the greatest humans ever to walk this planet were illegitimately born: Leonardo da Vinci, Queen Elizabeth I, Steve Jobs, and Oprah Winfrey all come to mind.”

Sam was not appeased, and he took on a sarcastic tone.  “Whatever you say, Leslie.”

“Of course, so was John Wilkes Booth, so you know, it’s a mixed bag.”

“Are you talking about bastards?”

Both Sam and Leslie turned to the right of the store to find an unknown woman standing there.  She was unremarkable except for her poorly matched clothes, orthopedic shoes and a single hair clip fastened on the left side of her hair. A wide strap that was attached to an unwieldy purse crossed her chest like a seatbelt.

“I only asked because bastardy—a term derived from 15th Century British property law—is a fascinating topic.”

“Apparently so,” Sam muttered, turning his face away.

“There was a time when being born outside of wedlock condemned one to a life haunted by the public  stigma of uncertain parentage, inferior education, social ridicule and financial disadvantage. However, in the Western world, the importance of marriage prior to childbirth is rapidly fading, and in many countries in Europe the majority of children are born outside the confines of matrimony.  If I may ask,” she continued, with humorless poise, “are either of _you_ a bastard?”

“Depends on who you ask,” Sam said with a smirk.

“If you are _indeed_ the product of an unwed union and are willing to participate in a study,” she continued, “I would be very interested in bringing you to my lab and hooking you up to electrodes so I could get an electroencephalograph of your brain while you recount some of the more agonizing aspects of your desolate childhood—a childhood you labored through without a father who valued your mother enough to make an honest woman out of her.”  She leaned forward, speaking more quietly.  “If you could manage to sob loudly or rend your clothes in grief, it would be even more helpful.”

Just then, the chorus of the song “Daughter” could be heard coming somewhere from the vicinity of the woman’s bosom.  She didn’t seem to care, or even notice.

“I think your phone is ringing,” Sam said.

“I am aware,” she said, nodding once.  “It’s my mother.”

“Oh, I get it,” Sam said.  “Her ringtone is ‘Daughter’ because you’re her, well, daughter.”

“Um, _no_ ,” she said, seemingly bewildered by this association.  “Because the song is by Pearl Jam, and my mother often wears pearls and makes a rather tasty boysenberry jam.”

“Of course,” Sam said.

“Who cares?!” Leslie said. “Just answer the damn thing.”

“No,” the woman said.  “When my mother calls me at this hour—and not at our established time of 7:00 in the evening—it is because she’s having a coffee break and seeks to chat with me about some tedium that I find no interest in.”

The phone stopped ringing.

“It could have been an emergency,” Sam said.

“A possibility,” she said with a shrug, “but statistically unlikely.”

Leslie had heard enough.  “Who _are_ you?” she asked.

“Amy Farrah Fowler,” she replied cheerfully, her chin up and her eyes closed.  “I’m a neurobiological researcher at UCLA and an amateur harpist.”

“Great,” Leslie said.  “Just what the world needs: more mad scientists armed with stringed-instruments.”

“Returning to my original offer,” the woman now known as Amy said, “If you are considering participating in my fledgling study, I could _literally_ sweeten the deal by offering you a promotional card I won from a local juice bar that would afford you a lifetime supply of free tapioca smoothies.”

Leslie looked back at her with profound confusion. “Why the hell would I want a lifetime supply of tapioca smoothies?”

Amy craned her neck forward, astonished by the question. “The benefits of tapioca are well founded and celebrated the world over,” she explained.  “Though the substance chiefly consists of carbohydrates, it is low in saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium, while simultaneously rich in folic acid, iron, calcium and omega-3 fatty acids.  It’s very nutritional.”

“So is semen,” Leslie replied, “but that doesn’t mean I want to eat it every day.”

Sam intervened. “I’m sorry, um…”  He groped for her name.

“Amy,” she reminded him.

“Amy, could I actually _assist_ you with something?”

“No, no,” Amy said, awkwardly rocking back and forth.  “I’ll just return to the corner where I was at first, standing idly by—coy and aloof—while secretly hoping that some reckless band of young, female musicians comes along and offers me the chance to join their world traveling rock band.  Sure, hanging out with a group of tattooed hooligans would break my mother’s heart, but it would give me the distinction of being the first famous musician with a pet monkey who actually knows how to dissect its brain.”

Leslie’s face of hostile bewilderment was replaced with a stunning look of realization.

“I’ve been wracking my brain trying to figure out where I’ve met you before,” she said, wagging her finger, “but I finally figured it out: you remind me of this guy I work with.”

“Then he must be quite a charming young fellow.”

“If you like dumbasses,” Leslie said.

Sam had to end this conversation, and fast.  He found the brain scientist annoying, sure, but Leslie’s droll insults was going to make him lose a potential customer.

“If you are interested in meeting musicians, Amy,” he said, “we have Open Mic Night out back on Fridays. Musicians play, sing, sometimes even get noticed.  You should come back then.  Maybe you’ll meet that band of female hooligans after all.”

Amy considered the suggestion and responded with a muted smile. “Thank you for the tip. I think I might take you up on the invitation.”

“Great,” he said. “I recommend that—”

But before Sam could finish, and without a farewell of any sort, she was heading for the door.

* * *

“Why would we be coming here?” Sheldon asked with same level of terror he would have shown if Leonard had pulled up to a brothel.

“I’m meeting Leslie here,” Leonard said, taking his keys out of the ignition.  “We’re getting ready for our quartet rehearsal tomorrow.”

“Oh dear,” Sheldon said, turning his head in dismay.  “This is not just some thinly veiled ploy to begin a coital relationship with her is it?”

“Of course not!” Leonard said.  “Leslie and I are just friends.  We’re meeting because it’s been a while since I’ve played my cello, and I need some new strings.  Besides, she knows the guy who owns this place and, apparently, he has a kid by her older sister and so gives her a discount when she comes in.”

Sheldon shook his head, appalled.  “Is there any aspect to the life of that scientific imposter that is not tainted with lurid tales of illicit intercourse?”

Leonard rolled his eyes and got out. He waited a second for Sheldon to get out, too, so he could lock the doors, but after several moments Sheldon still hadn’t budged.  Leonard opened the door back up and stuck his head inside.

“Coming?” he asked.

“No,” Sheldon said matter-of-factly.

“And may I ask why not?”

“You may,” Sheldon said.

Leonard sighed.  “Why not, Sheldon?”

“Because, besides the fact that this ‘music emporium’ is probably filled with all sorts of questionable characters from Pasadena’s seedy underbelly, I have an aversion to stringed instruments. Specifically harps, if I’m being precise.”

Leonard looked at him like he was crazy.  “I have a feeling I’m going to regret asking this, but: Why?”

“Ah,” Sheldon said. “I find them upsetting due to their overuse in classic TV sitcoms.  The harpist’s plucking of the whole tone scale makes me think that I’ll experience an episode from my past.”

“Will it take you back to the time before you could talk?” Leonard said with mock glee.

Sheldon reflected on the notion for a moment. “I’m afraid not. My eidetic memory only goes as far back as my post-speech years.  Although that was a fascinating idea, Leonard. Shame that those brilliant years I enjoyed prior to age two are lost in the annals of time.”

“Yeah, real tragedy,” Leonard said.  “I’m going inside.”  He slammed the door.

“Fine,” Sheldon said, and stuck his head out of the window, “but don’t take long.  Tonight is Thai Night and Siam Palace’s order accuracy decreases significantly after 7:00.”

“I won’t be long,” Leonard said, and set off towards the building.

* * *

When Leonard opened the door to the building, a young woman was standing there about to exit. She paused when she saw Leonard.

“While I appreciate your attempt at chivalry,” she said, “I am more than capable of opening the door for myself.”

“I wasn’t opening the door for you,” he said.  “I was actually coming in.”

“I find your misguided attempt at defending yourself unwelcome as well,” she said and, brushing past him, exited the building.

Leonard squinted harshly as he watched her walk away.  “Do I have ‘Crazies Welcome’ written on my forehead?” he said aloud.

“No,” Leslie answered, “but you do have a mustard stain on your shirt.”

Leonard looked down and started scratching at the yellow patch of dried condiment.

“You know him?” Sam asked.

“Yeah.  A colleague of mine, and a cellist.”

Leonard approached them.  “Hi, Leslie,” he said.

“Hello,” she replied, and motioned between the two men.  “Leonard, this is Sam.  Sam, this is Leonard.”

The two men exchanged handshakes.

“So, Leonard,” Sam said, “what can I do you for?”

“Right,” Leonard said, rubbing his hands together.  “I need to buy new strings for my cello.”

“Great,” Sam said, and walked out from behind the corner.  “I have a few kinds you can choose from, if you’d follow me.”

He and Leonard walked off towards the string section and perused the available inventory.  Leonard was busy considering his options when there was the loud sound of a car alarm going off.

“That sounds like my car,” he said aloud, and began to make his way to the door when Sheldon suddenly walked in.  His demeanor was sheepish.

“Hello,” he said.

Leonard rushed passed Sheldon and pushed the button on his key fob, silencing the blaring noise.

“So, now an alarm goes off before you show up,” Leslie said.  “Nice upgrade, Cooper.  Next time I’ll know to leave.”

“Yeah, well, I wish you would upgrade yourself to include a, well...,” he paused, thinking hard.  His face was contorted and steam was coming off the top of his head.  “To include a...um, a sandwich so you couldn’t talk.”

She just stared back, a glib smile on her face.  “I won,” she said.

“Sheldon,” Leonard said, weary, “I thought you said you weren’t coming in.”

“I had no intentions of coming in, however, my bladder indicated otherwise.”  He turned to Sam.  “Where might I find a bathroom?”

Sam answered, pointing. “In the back, down the hall and to your left.”

Sheldon started in the direction of the restroom, then paused and turned around. 

“Will there be reading material in there?”

The rest of group all exchanged disturbed looks.  “If you plan on taking a dump,” Sam said, “there’s a gas station across the street.”

“I ‘plan’ on eliminating _liquid_ waste, but I would feel more comfortable if I were prepared for any eventuality.”

Sam looked at Leonard as if to ask, “Is he serious?!”

“He takes his bowel movements very seriously,” Leonard explained.  He paused a beat.  “You should probably also know that he’s crazy.”

“I’m not crazy,” Sheldon said.  “My mother had me tested.  Besides, reading material is a long established item of any well-stocked bathroom facility.”

“Fine,” Sam said.  “What do you play?”

“Nothing,” Leslie answered.  “That would require talent.”

“I beg your pardon,” Sheldon said.  “I play the theramin.”

Sam stared back with no recognition.  “What’s a theramin?”

Leonard spoke up.  “It’s an electric instrument that’s played without any discernible physical contact from the player. It’s popular among _Star Trek_ fans.”

Sheldon leaned close to Leonard, smirking.  “He doesn’t know what a theramin is, and yet he claims to be a purveyor of musical instruments.”

Sam cleared his throat.  “Sorry.  We don’t have any reading material on _theramins_ , but here,” he said, and pulled a magazine from the magazine rack, extending it in Sheldon’s direction.  “Borrow this, but if you get it wet, you have to buy it.”

Sheldon came forward and took the booklet in hand, but wrinkled his nose after perusing the cover.  “I’m sorry,” he said, handing it back.  “I’m not a big fan of stringed instruments.  Got anything else?”

Sam scanned his collection.  “Woodwinds?”

“To woody.”

“Brass?”

“Too brassy.”

“Percussion?”

“Too percussive.”

“Keyboards? Or let me guess.  Too key-y?”

“Actually,” Sheldon said, “I’m a great fan of the piano and took lessons as a child.  However, I had a traumatic keyboard incident recently. I can’t get near the instrument without becoming nauseated by the sensation of cheesecake and vomit in my mouth.”

Sam was baffled. “Why can’t you—”

Leonard wilted wearily.  “Please don’t ask.”

“Well, then, that’s all I got,” Sam said.

“That’s very disappointing indeed,” Sheldon.  “One would think the ‘Best Damn Music Shop in Pasadena’ would have a better selection of music-themed periodicals.”

“Fine. Here,” Sam said, shoving one final booklet in the other man’s hands.  It was _Kermit the Frog’s Book of Songs to Play on the Recorder_.

“Kermit!” Sheldon cried, visibly charmed.  “He is an absolutely delightful character, and a wonderful ally to youth who find themselves ostracized from their peers because of their extraordinary qualities.”  He waved a playful hand at Sam.  “Why didn’t you start with this, you tease.”  With that, he gleefully headed to the back corridor, vanishing from sight.

Sam took a deep breath and tried to regain his composure.  “So, Leonard, where were we?  You were considering the metal strings over the synthetic ones because—”

Just then Sheldon reappeared, poking his head out from behind the corner and bearing a roll of toilet paper.  “This is two-ply. I usually use three-ply toilet paper.”

Sam pointed to the front door, yelling. “Either use the john, Sherman, or GET OUT!”

The urge to correct the error was on the tip of Sheldon’s tongue, but he was rebuffed by the look of murder on Leonard’s face. He swallowed the urge with a sniffle.

“I’ll just double up,” he said, waving the roll of paper, and disappeared once again.

“Dumbass,” Leslie said, and shook her head.

* * *

The antique cash register sputtered and clanged as Sam rang up all the orders.

“Okay, Leslie, one violin shoulder rest and jar of rosin for you,” he said.

“Yep,” she replied with a nod.

“Metal cello strings and a book of sheet music for you, Leonard.”

“You got it,” Leonard said.

“And finally one children’s book for recorder, one actual recorder, and a box of Red Vines for you,” —he paused— “ _Sheldon_.”

“Precisely,” Sheldon said. He clutched the instrument with childlike excitement.  “I can’t wait to learn to play.”

Leonard sighed. “I promised if he was quiet for the rest of the time I’d get him a treat.”  He pulled out his credit card.  “Go ahead and put his order on mine.”

“Oh goody, goody, goody,” Sheldon said, bouncing up and down.

When all the transactions had cleared, the melancholy pair of musicians and their merry friend left out of the store.  As soon as Sam heard the jingle of a bell settle into silence and felt the swoosh of air from the door swinging closed, he collapsed—head first—into the glass counter.

“What the hell just happened?” he groaned.  Then, he had a tempting idea.  “I should lock up early and go get a drink.”

Just then the jingle bell signaled that another costumer had arrived.

It was Amy Farrah Fowler.

“Hello,” she said, poking her head through the door. “I’m back.”

“Can I help you?” he asked, scraping up every bit of congeniality he could muster.

“I believe I have misplaced my tube of Chap Stick.  You didn’t happen to run across it, did you?”

Sam shook his head.  “No, but you’re welcome to look.”

Amy came fully inside and began to pace the aisles, combing the shop for her missing item.  Meanwhile, Sam wiped down the counter.  A moment later she approached him.

“You found it?” he asked.

“Afraid not,” she said, “although I did find this.”  She reached out her hand, and a sock dangled from her pinched fingers.  “I’m at a loss as to how someone would leave behind a single piece of hosiery, but I should note that it’s remarkably white and refreshingly fragrant.  I’m sure the owner misses it dearly.”

Sam took it from her.  “Thanks.  I’ll, uh, put it in the lost-and-found.”

Amy extended her hand.  “Then, I’ll see you Friday.”

“You will?” he groaned.

“Yes.  For Open Mic Night.”

“Oh, yeah,” he said.  He’d forgotten about that.  He shook her hand and plastered on a toothy smile.  “See you then.”

Amy nodded once, and then left.  As soon as she was gone, Sam ran to the door and locked it behind her, then flipped the door sign to read “WE’RE CLOSED.”

As he reached up to turn out the lights, he froze with a startling realization.  “Wait! Amy and Sheldon,” he said aloud.  “It’s so crazy, it just might work.  Maybe I should invite him to Open Mic Night, too.” Then he looked at the sock on the counter and thought of the Kermit book. “Nah,” he said and left, pulling the door behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks Lionne for the splendid beta job!


	2. The Peanut Reaction

Amy Farrah Fowler found herself in the electronics store simply because she was putting off going to the theater for her yearly date. The revised definitive cut of Blade Runner wasn’t exactly her cup of tea, but the guy had insisted that that’s what he wanted to do. Amy was seriously considering blowing him off – something that she’d never been on this end of before – and finding someone else to appease her mother with. It certainly wouldn’t be something she’d look back on as a missed opportunity – it’s not like she was going to end up with anyone who thought that eight seconds of previously unseen footage would really change anything.

She lingered in the DVD section anyway, figuring that this way she’d be able to tell her mother that she did in fact see a movie tonight. A couple DVDs were sitting in the wrong place, and she reached over to place them in their proper spots on the shelves. Taking a few steps to place Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium in the correct place, she felt her right foot come down on something soft. Glancing down, she saw she’d stepped on a child’s white and blue sock, and she shuddered, wondering what sort of parent allowed their child to remove their hosiery in the middle of a store. At least it wasn’t dirty.

She moved down the aisle, farther away from the sock, and began looking at the DVD burners on the shelf in front of her. She didn’t need one, but according to her watch, it was too early in the night to be able to text her date and claim that traffic would prevent her from making the movie. So she waited, letting her mind tune into the conversations around her.

_“Isn’t the gas mileage not great on that type of vehicle?“ “I always buy the American company cars, you see, my family’s been in this country for…”_

_“I just can’t believe how uncreative we can be. All the other planets have moons with these powerful names, and then we just have ‘the moon.’ And then there’s the genius-ly named ‘big red spot’ on Jupiter, like wow, wonder what that looks like, I didn’t get a good enough description from the name.”_  
Amy’s interest in that conversation was piqued, but unfortunately, they were moving out of earshot.

_“I don’t give a damn if she started crying, when you tell her that she needs to finish her spinach before she can leave the dinner table, then she needs to finish her spinach before she can leave the dinner table!”_

“…and as Chandler Bing would say, could this BE any more random?”

“So, what do you think?” “Um, that one.”

This fifth conversation was one that Amy could see the people involved, so she glanced over – a tall, skinny, dark haired man, and a shorter blonde woman who looked just like the sort of girl who picked on Amy in high school. The sight of her brought back some unpleasant memories, and Amy swallowed uncomfortably. _The pretty ones are always the cruelest. And the flakiest._

The pretty ones are always the cruelest and flakiest. Amy silently chided herself for falling into stereotyping. _Stereotyping does not always reflect the reality we live in,_ she told herself. _That is a mass assumption. You’re smarter than to fall into that, Amy Farrah Fowler, no matter what the evidence has suggested. Humans are not an exact science. But neither is stereotyping; if that article she’d read the other day on the very subject hadn’t been so sparsely sourced…_

Amy shook her head to clear her mind as the man was asking the woman about the reason she had for her selection of the two routers – something Amy did know something about a la Ryan, her 2007 date – that he held in his hands. “Because of the two additional Ethernet ports?”

“Sure,” she responded, and Amy gave a small nod. I don’t think my initial impression of her was much off the mark. 

“He doesn’t need them, he’s already got a 640 connect switch.”

Amy headed toward them, figuring off their conversation that they were on some sort of forced outing. It appeared obvious that the man was looking to make a purchase of a gift, and for some reason had asked the woman to accompany him. They clearly were on different pages in terms of their knowledge of what the future recipient would want or need, which seemed odd, as they didn’t appear to be two people who would go out gift shopping together because of a shared enjoyment of the company. Amy guessed that they both knew the person for whom the gift was intended, but the man hadn’t had as much experience with gift buying as the woman, though he could very well know the recipient better, so she had come along with him to help. She was clearly out of her element, though, and Amy thought that an objective third party might help – both in gift selection and allowing the man to escape the company of the blonde. She was unsure of if she’d be able to provide aide for the woman; stereotype or not, she seemed far too beneath Amy’s intellect to be worth her time, but certain she could make some sort of progress in conversation with the man, who was clearly the one who needed help.

“Okay, then this one,” the woman was saying, pointing to the other router.

Amy stopped. If they were going to make a decision and leave, she didn’t need to get involved.

“Why?” the man asked.

The woman shrugged, taking the box into her hands. “I don’t know, the man on the box looks so happy!”

If Amy had her own television show, the camera would have been sure to show her sharp pivot on her heel as she turned and headed back toward the exit.  
Even if she’d been able to help the guy make a decision, interacting with that woman was not worth her time.

_Okay. This woman is definitely not the exception when it comes to blonde stereotypes. It was definitely working out in terms of the impersonal cognitive effects that stereotyping had._

As Amy reached the exit, her phone began to ring. She ignored it. It was probably her date, wondering where she was. She didn’t need to answer, deciding that someone who got that excited about an extra eight seconds of footage wasn’t worth all that much of her time either.


	3. The Codpiece Topology

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While on a disappointing trip to the Renaissance Faire, in which she refused to participate in the making of historically inaccurate soap, Amy is happy to finally see a tall gentleman and his friends dressed in historically appropriate costumes.

"Though the Renaissance originated in Italy in the fifteenth century, the term itself is French. Northern Europe itself was not included in the movement until the beginning of the seventeenth century. Really it would make more sense to call the period after its original Italian name, Rinascimento-"

Amy was interrupted by Donna, her coworker. "That's great, Amy. Thanks." Amy thought she saw Donna exchange an eye roll with the rest of her coworkers, but as she was walking slightly in front of the group, she couldn't be sure. Earlier in the week she had happened across her fellow workers as they had been planning an outing to the Renaissance Faire and, since her mother had once again insisted that she spend time with other people despite the fact that she generally found other people dull and/or intellectually lacking, she had immediately stated her intent to join them.

She had never been to a Renaissance Faire, having always eschewed the idea of dressing up and playing pretend as childish nonsense, and was frankly finding the entire day disappointing. To call this debacle a Renaissance Faire was grossly inaccurate, to say the least. Amy had tried explaining to the girl dressed in the clothing of a fifteenth century Germanic peasant that it was incorrect for her to be serving mead, as the drink of her time would have been spiced wine, but all she had received for her helpful tip was a glare. She had not partaken in the mead, as she did not wish to impair her judgment with inaccurate alcohol.

"Oh look!" Alice pointed excitedly towards a soap-making station entitled "Ye Olde Soap". "We can make our own soap!" The rest of the group started chattering excitedly and walking towards the station. Amy had little recourse but to follow them, though she had very little expectation that they would be rendering fat into soap, which would be the historically accurate method, of course. When they walked up, there were already several people standing at stations. A quick glance at their handiwork confirmed that she was indeed correct and that the soap being made was not actually renaissance soap.

"I do not believe I will join you," she said. None of her companions seemed to hear her, still chattering away and trying to find empty stations. Amy turned around to go sit on a bench close by and bumped into someone.

"Sorry about that." The man turned to his friend. "Joe, why do you want to stop here so badly? I mean, come on. Soap? Could this be any lamer? I didn't come to visit you in LA so that we could make soap together…"

The two friends stepped around Amy, bickering about the merriment to be had while making soap. Amy shook her head, in agreement with the gentleman who bumped into her that it was indeed "lame". She walked over to an empty bench, several yards from the soap making station and sat down, holding her purse on her lap.

After several minutes, a motley crew of gentlemen happened to walk up. They caught Amy's eye, not only because they were dressed in outfits that could at least pass for proper garb of the time, but because they were bickering. One gentleman, a good head taller than the rest and wearing a very convincing and period appropriate monk's costume, seemed to be arguing with the other three. Under normal circumstances Amy would not have engaged in eavesdropping, but as they were arguing about the inaccuracies of the faire they were all attending, Amy couldn't help but figuratively perk up her ears.

"Sheldon, would you just shut up? I don't care if we're not really rendering fat," said a rather brightly colored court jester. "Can't you just let us have fun?" He turned to the short man dressed in chainmail. "Why did you bring him here?"

The chainmail dressed homunculus addressed the court jester. "You know we'd never have heard the end of it."

The man they had referred to as Sheldon threw up both his hands. "How you can think that participating in such historically inaccurate activities is fun is beyond me."

Amy nodded her head slightly in agreement as a man of Indian descent walked past Sheldon shaking his head. "Whatever, dude. I want to make soap. Come on, Howard."

Amy's eavesdropping was interrupted when a sock was suddenly shoved under her nose. It was Donna, who was rummaging through her purse.

"Hold this for a second will you? I can't find my wallet."

Amy looked warily at the sock. "Is it clean?"

Donna, whose head was nearly fully immersed into her unnecessarily large purse, replied impatiently. "What? Yes it's clean."

Amy took the sock and then frowned at it. "Why do you only have one?"

Donna replied, but Amy was unable to understand it as at that very moment her phone started ringing. She reached quickly into the side pocket of her purse to find it and see who was calling. When she finally located the phone, she saw that it was her mother. As she started to hit the answer button, Donna knocked into her and her finger slipped to the end button instead.

"Found it!" Donna immediately snatched her sock back out of Amy's hand and, without so much as a thank you, headed over to the cashier to pay for her soap.

Amy sighed and started to call her mother back, but before she could, the rest of her group walked by. Amy frowned, wondering why Donna had not alerted her to their departure, and stood up, throwing her phone back into her purse and hurrying after them. She passed by the group of gentlemen on which she had previously been eavesdropping just in time to hear Sheldon say, "I should never have let you talk me into attending this travesty."

Amy couldn't help but agree with the sentiment, even if the person who had talked her into going was herself.


	4. Part 4: The Frienship Algorithm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 4: The Friendship Algorithm

Five minutes into her date, Amy knew it'd be as dull and irritating as the previous ones. Not that she had hoped otherwise anyway; her mother's insistence on seeing her dating was starting to get really tiresome, and—George Foreman grill or not—they would have to talk about her freedom in the near future.

Alfred Hermann had sent her a message three nights before, inviting her to the climbing club he went to at least once a week. "It would be nice for you to be introduced to a big part of my life," he had said, and Amy had wanted to answer that she had no interest in spending time with someone who saw rock climbing as a decent activity. She had then, however, remembered her deal with her mother, and so her answer had turned out to be a polite and falsely enthusiastic "I'd love to, Alfred. Sincerely, Amy Farrah Fowler."

There she was, five minutes after two, waiting near the club's entrance. Alfred Hermann had either stood her up (which would mean that her mother would pester her into another date), or he was simply late, which would make her annoyed for the rest of the afternoon. It might have been old-fashioned, but Amy firmly believed in punctuality, and whoever didn't hold himself to the same standard wasn't worth her time.

The man hadn't even showed up yet that Amy already knew that this date would be both dull and irritating.

When Amy next glanced down at her watch, another five minutes had gone by, and Alfred Hermann still was nowhere in sight. Sighing, she thought about simply leaving without any remorse, when a voice she had never heard before called her name.

"Amy Farrah Fowler?"

Turning her head, she was greeted by the smiling face of a man in his early forties, hair a little grey around the ears and wrinkles under his eyes. He was wearing a navy blue tracksuit and carrying a red backpack. Amy suddenly felt overdressed in her grey skirt, her blue shirt and her yellow cardigan.

"I assume you are Alfred Hermann?" she said, although it wasn't really an assumption for Alfred Hermann looked exactly like he did on the picture he had posted on the website: average and boring.

"The one and only," he said with an annoying little laugh. "I'm sorry to have kept you waiting. One of my kids hurt himself and I had to tend to the wound."

Oh, right. He had mentioned having kids. Amy's bet was that they probably were even worse than their father.

"Haven't you got sports clothes?" he then asked, noticing that Amy didn't have a bag.

"I do not intend on climbing anything as I do not harbor a death wish nor the need to look like an idiot," she said. She could tell it threw Alfred Hermann off a bit.

He quickly recovered, though, and with a smile, said, "Your loss."

 _Definitely_ , she thought.  _Loss of an afternoon I could have spent working._

* * *

Amy sat straighter in her chair as Alfred Hermann got up to get their drinks—a latte for him, tepid water for her. He had agreed to a little more conventional "drink and chat" in the gym cafeteria before going to climb his wall, and for that Amy was grateful. She hated having drinks with men from dating websites, but she reckoned it would surely be better than just watching him climb.

Alfred Hermann hadn't been at the counter for ten seconds when her phone started ringing. Amy sighed, knowing very well who it would be. She still checked, in case her lab was calling to let her know they had made a breakthrough and needed her on the spot, but when she saw her mother's name flashing in bright blue letters on her phone screen, she simply rolled her eyes and let the ringtone blare until her mother gave up.

A few minutes later, Alfred Hermann was back at the table with the aforementioned beverages.

"There you go," he said cheerfully, passing Amy her glass, and she silently thanked him with a nod of her head. He smiled. "So, Amy," he continued, "what do you do for a living?"

It took all of Amy's strength not to sigh. Not a single one of her dates ever understood her answer to this question, and Amy had really grown tired of trying to answer it.

"I'm a neur—"

Just as Amy was about to throw herself into a round of stupid questions yet again, a voice somewhere behind her caught her interest.

"I'm telling you, Kripke...Barry...String Theory is the future of Physics. One day you'll see I was right and all I'll be able to do is look at you with a look of haughty derision. Or I might say "I told you so." Maybe even both."

"Gweat, Coopew. Can't wait fow that to stawt."

The two men who were talking walked past their table, straight to the counter, and without even realizing it, Amy's gaze followed them, her eyes riveted on their backs. They both had brown hair, but their resemblances stopped there. One of them—the one who had a lisp—was short and apparently athletic, while the other was tall and lanky. Not one to care much for muscles, Amy's gaze lingered a bit longer on the tallest man's back. He was wearing a weirdly fitting ensemble of beige pants, red tee-shirt and purple undershirt and, even though Amy couldn't see his face, she somehow knew that if he were to look in her direction, she'd see nothing but confidence.

Amy wasn't one to foolishly fall for boys she didn't know—she didn't even fall for the few she actually knew—but she strangely found herself drawn to this one.

"So, Amy, about your work?"

Alfred Hermann's voice drew Amy's back to the present moment.

"Um, right, sorry," she said, way too flustered for her own liking. "I am a neuroscientist."

Alfred Hermann looked like he was about to ask what that was, but Amy held up a hand and added, "Can you please hold that thought?"

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the two men walk away from the counter and towards a table, their order in hand. The smallest man had ordered a coffee while the tallest one was obviously having a tea, chamomile. If Amy wasn't mistaken—and she probably wasn't—they were animatedly talking about physics.

Granted, Amy wasn't that big on physics and was unknowledgeable about the differences between String Theory and Loop Quantum Gravity, but the fact that someone would choose to go into the sciences was always a big plus for her. There were way too many people going into pointless careers, careers like acting or, even worse, literary jobs. It was always good to see more people who had chosen the right path.

She listened to both men as they vividly discussed their topic. She found herself looking more often than not at the taller one. She regretted not being able to see his face, and craned her neck for a better look, to no avail. What she saw, however, she liked: tall, lanky, and skin with a pale, waxy quality? It was enough to make a girl drool. Not that Amy would drool. She had standards.

"Shut up, Coopew," said the smaller man. "I'm hewe because I want to cwimb, not because I want to heaw you be a pain in the ass. You do that enough at wowk."

 _Colleagues, then,_ Amy thought _. And the smaller man was clearly intimidated by Cooper's intellect, wasn't he?_

"Fine, Kripke. By refusing to engage in this discussion, you're simply proving me right."

Kripke rolled his eyes, drank his coffee in one gulp and got up.

"Okay Coopew, wet's cwimb that bitch."

Cooper had the decency to appear shocked by Kripke's language, but he couldn't protest for Kripke was already out of the coffee shop. Shrugging, Cooper followed, and Amy watched him until he was out of her sight.

"Erm, Amy?"

Amy's gaze snapped back to Alfred Hermann and she said:

"Sorry, Alfred. Let's go climb this thing."

* * *

Leaning against one of the blue walls, Amy waved occasionally at her date while silently observing Kripke and, more importantly, Cooper. She could finally catch a glimpse of his profile, or what she could make of it under his protective helmet. He was the only one in the room who had thought about this protection, which was inexplicably titillating for Amy. Well, no; it wasn't inexplicable at all. Actually, this meant that out of all the males in the gym, Cooper was the only one to realize he wasn't invincible, and this foresight made him the most suitable mate because he obviously was thinking about the survival of the species. Obviously.

That train of thought was a surprise to Amy, because she wasn't looking for a mate. She had been, once, when she was still a teenager and desperately wanting to fit in. Ever since, however, she had closed herself off and now preferred to think she could choose to never be involved with anyone else. But as it had only taken one lanky physicist and a helmet to make her think otherwise, Amy realized she was still as weak as the twenty-year old girl she once was.

Suddenly very annoyed at herself (and at Cooper), Amy's eyes turned poisonous and it got even worse when she realized that as much as she wanted to, she still couldn't look away. This Cooper idiot and his stupid helmet had bewitched here, except that Amy didn't believe in magic (thank you very much), and the simple fact that she would think about magic in a moment like this was enough to make her even angrier. She needed something to make her look away—and quickly—when she remembered Alfred Hermann had left his bag with her. Amy crouched down and opened it, pretending to look for something, internally cringing at the chaos that was this bag, where no clothing was folded. She even found a single clean sock, which was especially maddening because  _socks went in pairs_.

And then, seemingly coming out of thin air, a voice that sounded suspiciously like her mother's rang in Amy's head:

_I bet Cooper shares your aversion to chaos and that a date with him would be ten times more interesting._

Amy growled—literally. Those were the times she remembered how similar to monkeys human beings were; sure, her reactions had been primal and animalistic, but she didn't care—she loved monkeys. Amy had really growled because somehow, she knew the voice—her subconscious, obviously. She didn't really believe her mother had the power to invade her mind like this.

Defeated, she sighed, looking up, only to find Cooper dangling from the roof. He had visibly passed out and was now seemingly sleeping midair, a simple rope preventing his fall to the ground.

Amy sighed. This was a new development. Cooper was obviously weak—he wouldn't have passed out otherwise—and so not the mate she had somehow imagined. But whether her sigh was one of disappointment or of relief, she wasn't sure—and didn't want to dwell on it.

"I'm going home," she shouted to Alfred Hermann, and left without even waiting for his answer.


	5. The Pants Alternative

“But how could Ryan do this to me, Joy? I loved him sooo much,“ a young woman whined as she sat curled up in the plush chair in a corner of the hotel bar. “My heart is completely, utterly, horrifically bro—hang on.” Between sniffles, she put her strawberry daiquiri down on the candle-lit table, untouched. “I’m going to need something stronger than this. Ryan and I were together for three weeks. This is REAL pain, Joy; it needs REAL alcohol. Where is—oh, hi.” 

Magically, a clean-cut bartender materialized at their table, carrying a tray of shot glasses filled with pale amber liquid and attempting to make eye contact with her. He leaned forward just enough to flicker a glance or two down her low-cut, white blouse. “You look like you could use a follow up shot,” he said to the tawny blonde.

“Oh, we do,” her friend Joy replied, even as she caught the bartender’s look. She cleared her throat meaningfully, regarding him sharply over the rims of her mint green glasses. 

Caught, he started slightly, then slunk back to the bar with an appropriately guilty look on his face. Joy shook her head, “Linny, this is a rhetorical question, but how do you still manage to attract guys right and left when your nose is red and you have mascara running down your face?”

“Huge boobs,” Linny answered without batting an eyelash. “Now give me that,” she said, taking the shot glass and holding it up to Joy. “Men are monsters. Let’s drink to being done with the pathetic scumbags forever.”

She and Joy clinked glasses, shot back the amber liquid, and then fell back into their easy rapport without missing a beat. Joy picked up Linnea’s lead and took to the task of soothing her. “Men are just insufferable jerks who only think with their penises. You know this.” 

“But that ugly, horrible, skanky ass, redhead in accounting? How could my Ryan decide to play ‘hide the salami’ with her in the supply room when we had just spent all last Friday night watching movies and making out? And worse? That Post-it Note shelf was our spot! It’s where we had our first kiss.” The blonde started sniffling again, and Joy offered her a little package of tissues from which Linnea yanked five at a time. “It was sacrilege! I think he just did it to hurt me. I mean, how could he—no,“ Linnea broke off, staring in surprise down the length of the hotel lobby’s hallway. She moaned and started shredding one of the tissues nervously with her fingertips. “Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no.”

“Heno? What’s a heno…OH,” Joy sputtered. “Oh no.” She had turned to look in the same direction as her friend, and hissed sharply on the intake when she saw the same approaching apparition. “Merde.”

Coming towards them was their friend, Cassy, glossy blonde curls bobbing around her shoulders as she walked gracefully in a pair of heels, an apology already stamped all over her pretty, soft features. Next to her stomped along a brunette woman with heavy, dark-framed glasses, a mismatched ensemble consisting of a maroon skirt, red tights, an unflattering mustard yellow cardigan, and a neutral, unsmiling, almost haughty expression on her face. The two women could not have been a more mismatched pair.

“I can’t believe she brought her,” Linnea whispered, even as she tried to sit up straighter and brush the tears and crumbling mascara from her eyes. 

“Pad your panties, girls, we’re about to take a trip to awkward and uncomfortable,” Joy growled to herself between gritted teeth. She carefully pulled her lips back into a snarling smile as two new women approached their little table.

“Hiiiiiiiii guys,” Cassy trilled in a voice that was overbright, her smile tight and green eyes just a little wild. “Look who let me know she was free to join us for drinks this evening! And insisted on doing so! It’s our co-worker, Amy. As in Farrah Fowler! You know Amy Farrah Fowler.”

“Good evening,” Amy Farrah Fowler said seriously, studying Linnea with unabashed curiosity, “Cassy intimated that you have been bamboozled by a beastly buck of a postdoctoral assistant, and naturally I dropped everything to come console one of my favorite co-workers. Clearly my expertise in such matters was needed.” Amy plopped down unceremoniously into one of the opposite arm chairs, pinned her knees together primly, and clasped them lightly with both hands. She continued speaking in the same monotone, “I’m here for you. Sister.”

“I…oh….uh….expertise?” Linnea inquired, looking between Amy and the other two women uncertainly. “What…I...you…I need more tissue. And tequila.” She paused and then sat up a little straighter, looking at Amy as if an alien had just turned up at the table, “I…I didn’t know you had ever dated, Amy. I mean, I’m sure you have had a boyfriend, well, maybe not a boyfriend but met…men…met someone who was male, somewhere. Sometime. Somehow. It’s not…it’s not…unlikely?” 

Joy began to make desperate gestures towards the bartender, but the man was already approaching the candle-lit table with four more shots of tequila and two more strawberry daiquiris, his eyes still trained rather directly at Linnea’s chest region. He placed the drinks on the table as Amy continued to speak.

“Linnea,” Amy began, “I am a highly regarded neuroscientist at the top of my field, and as such I have insight into human behavior, particularly the chemical reactions going on within your brain that you believe are causing you to feel, in laymen’s terms, ‘sad.’” Amy reached up and made little quotation marks in the air, and then dropped her hands to her knees again. “I am here to help you understand that all you are going through is a severe drop in your dopamine and serotonin levels, which you can easily control via proper medication or brainwave frequency alteration. I’m sure that, under my guidance, we can relieve you of the mistaken belief that the aforementioned romantic entanglement has any true import. I feel confident I can help you recover a more cheerful disposition by explaining to you that your attachment to this male was a mere chemical reaction which, once you see the logical side of it, you can easily overcome and dismiss.” Amy reached into her pocket and pulled out a portable electroencephalography device. “So let’s glue these electrodes to your scalp and get started.”

During this speech, all three women (and the bartender) had stared at Amy in what she took for rapt silence and awe. When she finished, the three girls tossed back the contents of their tiny glasses in unison and slammed them on the table. The bartender opened his mouth to say something, then decided against it, and did so in such an apparent stupor that he forgot to take a look down the darker blonde’s blouse again. Instead he muttered to himself. 

“Could that girl be any weirder?”

Amy didn’t catch the comment, but did hear his tone. Instead, she watched the bartender leave suspiciously, and then picked up her shot glass and frowned. “What is this?”

“Magic juice,” Joy replied, blinking owlishly. 

“Be nice,” Cassy said, looking sternly at Joy.

Putting her fingertips over her lips, Joy muttered from behind them to Cassy. “Your ‘nice-girl,’ people-pleasing, spineless jellyfish issues are why I just had to suffer through that ridiculous soliloquy.”

“Shush,” Cassy said, furrowing her brow worriedly as she looked back at Amy. She nudged Joy’s ribs with her elbow and spoke kindly to the brunette. “That’s tequila, Amy. It’s our traditional drink of choice every time Linnea breaks up with yet another guy.” She gave Linnea an exasperated but fond look, adding, “Which means we’re usually here every other week, drinking our sorrows away.”

“Oh,” Amy said shortly, looking rather unimpressed, “Well, with all due respect to Linnea’s generous secondary sexual characteristics, indiscriminate taste in sexual partners and unappeasable appetite for coitus, I don’t drink.” She put the glass back back down. 

Linnea picked it up and made an announcement. “I do, and I need that. Thank you.” She took her shot with gusto, shuddered, and slammed the glass back down as Amy watched her with a frown of disapproval. Linnea simply flung a dismissive gesture at Amy’s EEG device with her hand and added, “And I am not putting those on. Sister.”

“Fine, and you’re welcome,” Amy said, stowing the contraption back into her pocket. She picked up the pink drink on the table instead, and inspected it. “I’m still thirsty. What is this?”

“Straw…strawberry…uh, the word, there’s a word. Merde. Cassy, what’s the word?” Joy turned her hand over at the wrist to point at the drink, clearly having a hard time remembering the name of it. The tip of her nose seemed to be turning slightly pink.

“Daiquiri,” Cassy said, eyeing her friends carefully and wondering how many they had managed to tuck away before her arrival with Amy. “Joy is trying to say it’s a strawberry daiquiri.”

“Oh, I like strawberries,” Amy said, and picked up her drink, taking a very long sip through the lime green straw. She cleared almost half the glass of its contents in one go. Cassy and Joy both opened their mouths as if they were going to say something, but then exchanged a glance and closed then again, turning back to watch Amy closely. Amy returned their looks with an unabashed one of her own, informing them simply, “I’m a nervous sipper.” She followed that up by taking another long sip, sending her glass down to its pink dregs. 

Joy lifted her brows, “Oh, you don’t say.”

“Wait, what is she did she say?” Linnea blurted out, turning to look at Cassy. “Did you understand what she said?” 

“No,” Cassy answered, puckering her lower lip and shaking her head skeptically. “Not one word. As usual.”

“I said—” Amy began.

“Nothing,” Joy cut in, quick and stern, the look she gave Amy decidedly dirty. “Nothing at all. Let’s continue, Linny dear, with why Ryan sucks and how we’re going to plan to cut off that tiny penis of his that he insists on taking to greener pastures. Well, not greener, I didn’t mean greener! Merde again!” Joy tossed her hands, palm upwards, and turned to look at Cassy desperately for help even as Linnea slumped over in her chair again with another wail of heartbroken anguish. White tissues were spilling out of her hands and starting to collect in messy piles around her feet.

“I was saying,” Amy started again, as Cassy and Joy groaned, “that your neurological reaction to playing the female cuckold is merely—”

“Okay,” Cassy said, holding up her hands and leaning forward. She kept her tone level and kind as she spoke, “you know, Amy, maybe we shouldn’t come at this from that angle. Let’s not dwell on chemistry, or cocks, or the holding of said cocks–“

“– or redheads sucking on said cocks in supply closets,” Joy muttered around the edge of her glass, making Linnea sob harder and bury her face in her molting handfuls of tissues. 

Amy opened her mouth to protest, but Cassy held up a hand to her and continued to speak, keeping her tone as sweet but firm as possible. There was a reason why Cassy ran the Human Resources department at UCLA. 

“–Or the scientific side of this, just for a moment. We get enough of that at work, don’t you think?” She gave Amy a pointed look. 

“How can we possibly ever get enough of science? It explains everything,” Amy asked, looking between Cassy, Joy and Linnea in confusion. “I know you only work in the Human Resources Department, Cassy, but surely all the time spent around better minds at UCLA has lead you to at least appreciate the power of science.” She looked to Joy, the only other at the table with a doctorate in the sciences, for support. 

“You’d be surprised what science can and can’t explain,” Joy noted dryly, studying Amy over the rims of her green glasses; her brown eyes holding a speculative but hard expression. 

Amy frowned, and narrowed her own eyes back at Joy. Something in the air shifted as the two scientists stared each other down, and you could also hear the whirs of the gears in their head spinning as they sized each other up.

Suddenly, Linnea sniffed, sighed dramatically, and shifted with a certain amount of annoyance. She reversed the cross of her legs, pressed a tissue to her eye, and let the rest tumble from her lap like snow to the floor. Joy reluctantly shifted her attention from Amy and turned back to the tawny, tan blonde and inquired,“ So. Tell us what that lecherous, awful asshole say to you when you confronted him about his supply room activities?

Linnea spun her tissue around her finger and daubed at the streaks of mascara running down her face. “He said that he was tired of waiting for me to ‘give it up.’ He said he was a man of passionate sexual appetites that needed fulfilling.”

“Pointing out the obvious,” Amy muttered, taking another long sip of her drink. She had almost finished it. “In the wild, Gorillas often take multiple–“

Joy picked up Linnea’s untouched drink and slammed it down in front of Amy, saying rather tersely, “Be so kind as to finish this for her.” 

“I’m not finished with what I was saying!” Amy protested.

“Yes you are,” Cassy said, though her tone of voice was much more coaxing than Joy’s. “And I’m afraid that I much forbid any further mention of dopamine, gorillas, or EEGs.” 

“That depletes my usual stock of conversational topics,” Amy said. 

“That is not our problem,” Joy returned, staring daggers at Amy through her mint green glasses until the brunette slowly picked up the daiquiri and took a nervous sip. She kept sipping hotly every two seconds, her eyes skipping between the other three women, noting that the acidic Joy, in particular, was starting to grind her teeth. Amy recalled that teeth grinding was behavior observed in primates before they brutally assaulted each other, and figured it was probably best to concentrate on her tasty pink drink. It was pretty good after all, and a bartender—who was very cute if you liked the toothpaste commercial kind of man—had dropped off another round of them.

“He just said that it was my fault because I wouldn’t give it up,” Linnea whispered, eyes starting to tear up again. “He said it was over and that I had missed out on the thrill of taking the ‘Ryan Ride.’”

Cassy and Joy gasped in horror; Amy sucked on her straw hard and her drink crackled with bubbles of an unpleasant sucking sound. Cassy shifted another drink in front of her, saying hopefully, “Here. Try this one.”

Amy obeyed as the other three women tossed back another round of shots and picked up the thread of their conversation as if it had never been snipped by an alcoholic interruption at all.

“I just wanted him to respect me!” Linnea wailed, slumping over in her plush chair, covering her eyes with her hands, “His eyes are so, you know, and his butt is just so, so, sooooo,” She sighed breathily, “But obviously he just wanted a fire-crotched, flat-chested, dog-breath whore with a yeast infection, a nose that looks like a bus parked on her face, and loose morals!”

“Like I have said, Linny, men think they are so smart because they have two heads, and women talk so much because they have four lips.” Joy shook her head sadly as she watched mascara run down Linnea’s cheeks. “And most of the thinking men do, they do with the head located in their genital region rather than one on their shoulders.”

Amy looked startled, and said, “That’s a biological impossibility, you know that, Joy.” She paused but then went on slowly, “and so you must have meant your remark factiously!” She paused to think about it as Joy stared at her in bemusement. Suddenly, Amy gave the briefest, snarkiest of tiny smiles that seemed to die on her lips as quickly as it came. “Funny,” she acknowledged frostily. 

“Men. You can sleep with them for a glass of wine, you can hold out for weeks¬–it seems that no matter how I try to play the game, no man I date can resist weighing anchor at any welcoming port.” Linnea said, resting her tear-stained cheek on her palm and staring off into the distance. “To top it off, no matter what they decide to do with their pathetic little peckers, somehow they always find a way to a woman for their behavior. Ryan made me feel like it was my fault he cheated on me!”

Cassy’s eyes had taken on a slightly glassy shine, and her cheeks had turned a rosier shade. She was catching up with her friends, and quickly. She murmured, her tone almost dreamy, “Isn’t that just like a man?”

Linnea and Joy sighed softly in agreement, and lapsed into silence to sip at their daiquiris.

Amy polished hers off as well, even as she found it more difficult to sit up straight in her chair. She reflected that Cassy’s words seemed like the wisest thing she had ever heard, and then when the full ramifications of that thought hit her she frowned. Amy looked over the empty glasses on the table, and tried to remember how much had been drunk from various glasses before she emptied them, and as she found herself unable to calculate fractions in her head, she looked into the bottom of her empty glass and wondered for the first time if daiquiris were made with something stronger than just strawberries.

“It IS just like a man,” Linnea stated emphatically, “An evil-penised man whore boob stick.”

“That’s what my last girlfriend called me before we broke up,” the bartender shared with a big smile as he dropped off more shots and cleared away all of the empty glasses. “Without the boobs, of course.” He chuckled at his own joke and looked around at the ladies for support, but Joy looked at him icily and after a pause Linnea simply devolved into more weeping. 

Cassy murmured sympathetically and began plucking tissue after tissue out of the little package to give to Linnea, who jerked them out of her hands one after another until she buried her face into massive handfuls of white fluff. 

Joy rolled her eyes. “Check please,” she said, but like any man with a sense of self-preservation, the bartender had hastily retreated when Linnea had broken into tears again.

Amy put a hand up over her cheek to try to cool the burning sensation she felt rather pleasantly building there. “You should get revenge,” she noted absently. 

“I should,” Linnea agreed, jerking her head up. A tissue stuck to her eyelashes, and the tip of her nose was smudged with black mascara. “I should get revenge.” She paused and then turned to Joy, asking blankly, “How do I do that?” She plucked the tissue off her face and tossed it over her shoulder, only to immediately take another from Cassy. 

“You break into his apartment and steal all of his spoons,” Joy answered. “It doesn’t hurt him but it drives him nuts when he realizes he can’t eat his morning cereal with a fork or a knife.” She picked up a daiquiri and took the straw in her fingertips, starting to poke it aggressively against the bottom of the glass, “And cut out the crotch of all his jeans, especially his favorite ones. And then spill a vanilla milkshake all over his desk Friday after work, so when he comes back Monday he’ll find it covered in a huge rotting mess that looks like cum!”

“Yes,” Cassy agreed firmly, taking a moment to sip her own daiquiri, “I like that. And we’ll egg his car! No, wait, this is better,” she sat up and put her hands out in front of her, palms down, “What if we buy a galloon of hot pink paint, and accidently drop it on top of his car?”

“Why are we concentrating on him?” Linnea asked, sitting up straighter, “What about that redheaded bitch in accounting? Let’s hide 50 Post-It notes that say “You’re a dirty whore!” in 50 different places in her office,” Linnea slurred, “In her books, under her computer, in her…in her STAPLER! Yes, we’ll booby trap the STAPLER. Accountants are into their staplers, right?”

“You should take a little pin and poke holes in all of his condoms!” Amy blurted out, “give them an unwanted pregnancy, even though the shame of the social stigma of siring a bastard child is not what it once was…although, perhaps it’ll all end in a tear-stained shotgun wedding after the paternity test results are revealed on Maury Povich.” All three women stared at her in shock. Amy just shrugged and said, “What? I was sick with the flu a month ago and had to watch daytime TV.” Amy looked around at the stunned faces and then started to suckle on her straw like a starving baby with a pacifier, staring at a poster of melons.

“See, now, that makes your spoon idea look a lot saner,” Linnea noted to Joy. “However, I feel we’re losing sight of our true mission here, and that’s to drink away our sorrows into oblivion. So bottom’s up, bitches!” 

All of the women picked up a glass and toasted each other, then took their final round of shots with gusto. Without thinking about it, Amy picked up a shot glass as well. She tossed back the liquid and swallowed before the tequila really hit her senses. When it did, Amy shuddered uncontrollably, attempted a smile that turned considerably sloppy around the edges. She stood swiftly to her feet and said, “I’m going to go projectile vomit.” Amy took a step towards the hotel’s main hall but paused, then turned back to add, “Which I would like you to know is not a remark on the beautifully blossoming friendship I feel forming with all of you, whom I already think of as bosom bud–oh God, I need to stop talking.” Amy staggered away, following a green “EXIT” sign, which was about all she could clearly make out any longer. 

“Wait, Amy,” Cassy said as she tried to rise to her feet, but she quickly sank back down, drawling out, “Oh, no, I’ll have go find her a minute. Or two.” She blinked rapidly a few times, and looked around worriedly, “Did she take her purse? Where are her car keys?”

“Why are you so concerned, Cass? Did we just become friends with Amy Farrah Fowler?” Linnea asked. 

“If we did, I blame that manwhore, Ryan, for everything,” Cassy replied. 

“Speaking of, I wonder if the ‘Ryan Ride,’ is any good,” Joy mused thoughtfully. Her friends turned to look at her in shock, and Joy sat up straighter looking back with equal horror, “Um, did I just say that out loud?”  
________________________________________

Amy stumbled out into the humid California air, ignoring the sound of her cell phone tweeting cheerfully in her pocket. She went straight over to the nearest wall, placed one hand up against it heavily, and barely managed to choke down a mouthful of puke. She then stumbled several paces further on, and came up against a collection of trashcans, one of which seemed to be spitting up an argyle sock. She opened the lid of one and vomited into its depths, relieving herself of all the strawberry daiquiris and the half-digested remains of the Monte Cristo sandwich she’d had for lunch. She was standing there, desperately clutching the sides of the trashcan for support and breathing heavily, when she heard a desperate voice demand, “Move. Move, move, MOVE,” from behind her.

Amy fell back against the side of a dumpster and waved the trash can lid airily in front of her, blurting out, “Excuse me!” which clearly was what the interloper into her private hell would have said if, Amy reckoned, he wasn’t another one of those terrible manwhores she’d been hearing about all evening.

She sunk against the dumpster and watched as a tall, thin man dressed in a dapper black coat stepped up next to her, flipped his tie over his shoulder, and proceeded to vomit into her trash can without ceremony. Amy stumbled back several paces to put distance between them as he went about his business. To her surprise, the man had no pants to match his jacket, and she stared at the upturned, white-clad buttocks presented to her in stunned silence as he made his own deposit into the trashcan. 

“SHAMELESS,” she slurred, splaying her feet and lifting the trashcan lid in front of her like a shield. Her phone continued to trill from her pocket, but she ignored it in the face of obvious, imminent danger.

The tall man stood up, wiped delicately at the corner of his mouth, seeming to wince as her phone continued to ring loudly. “Are you going to answer that?” he asked, pinching his temple. The phone rang again, shrill and demanding, and the man scolded her, “Answer your phone, woman!”

“You’re not wearing pants,” Amy accused him, unable to unfocus on the shocking realization she had been staring at a man’s nearly naked backside, and even worse, was getting glimpses of his barely covered front bulge. She looked at it, and then tried to look at his face, but ended up going back to staring at the bulge peeking at her with each flap of his coat. 

“I left them in the fourth dimension,” the man informed her coolly, sizing her up and seeming to realize exactly where she was looking. He pulled his coat together as best he could over his underpants and continued haughtily, “I’d ask you to help me look for them, but a drunken, rude plebian like you who won’t even answer your own phone probably don’t even know what the fourth dimension is, let alone how to find pants there.”

Amy bridled at the insult, drawing herself up further and waving her tin shield at him threateningly, “I knew my Euclidian geometry before you were potty trained, you brainless, boring, thoughtless….MAN.” Amy furrowed her brow and tried in vain to come up with a wittier insult than that. “Man…you…MEN!” She snapped her fingers as it came to her, and she pointed at him, “Only think with your penises! You penis ponderer person! With your thoughtless penis, exposed…I…you….you don’t think, wait…no, if you think…with your penis….” She closed her eyes and tried to reason her way through it, “If you’re thoughtless then you don’t think so if you think with your penis then logically…where am I going with this?”

“Are you trying to suggest I am the type of male who thinks with his penis or that I don’t have a penis at all?” The man drew himself up taller, almost looming over her, but Amy was not so easily intimidated. 

“Yes,” she slurred back at him, her green eyes narrowed, her shield raised, and her stance braced for bickering. 

He took an outraged breath and opened his eyes wide in shock, and Amy noticed they were quite blue. “I have a penis!” he informed her, squaring his shoulders as if he, too, was preparing to fight. 

“Which is exactly just like a man! Yes! You. Men. I’ve heard all about you! All you men and your evil penises, shamelessly spreading your seed all over town with ugly redheaded whores!” She gestured to wildly to the town at large with her trashcan lid.

The man paused, blinked once, and then noted, “You sound just like my mother.” He seemed to find that curious. “Are you Episcopalian?” He put his hand up to steady himself against a large stack of cardboard boxes. As he pressed his weight against them they collapsed, and he tumbled head over feet right in, leaving Amy to stare at his wiggling, threshing feet. 

“Help!” came his muffled cries from inside the box. “Help me!”

Amy taunted him mercilessly, “Why don’t you access the fourth dimension and help yourself out of there! You can pick up your pants on the way!” 

For a moment there was silence, and then Amy dropped her arm to her side, letting the trashcan lid rest against her hip as she waited for his rejoinder. Instead, she distinctly heard the muffled sound of a drunken, tenor voice softly warbling the Element Song to itself, and a black clad foot swung back and forth in front of Amy’s face to the beat of the song. By the time the singer slurred himself through europium, zirconium, lutetium, and vanadium, Amy had had a change of heart. She took a step forward to go to his rescue when two blondes and a short man with a mop of dark hair burst out of the side door. 

“Sheldon!” the man called out. Amy pointed to the pile of cardboard crowned by a pair of flopping black feet, and he and the blonde hurried over and started to fish within the depths for their friend. 

“Amy,” Cassy gasped, leaning heavily into the door. “Oh, thank god I found you. I was trying to call you!” She looked up, and slid open the bar that would keep the steel door propped open. “Come on, the taxi is here. We’re going home.”

Amy and Cassy clung to each other for support as they turned for the dimly lit hotel hallway. Behind them, Amy could hear a man and woman’s voice crying out, “Sheldon! Stay still!” and “Sheldon, stop singing that stupid song!” and “Sheldon, let go of my ear!”

Amy informed Cassy, “Your arrival was opportune. That man was not wearing pants, did not have a penis, and was strenuously threatening to do something with it in the fourth dimension.”

A clenched fist punched the air above the cardboard boxes, waving about in defiant outrage. Over the protests of his two friends, Amy heard the tall man yell, “I DO HAVE A PENIS AND I AM NOT GOING TO DO ANYTHING WITH IT IN THIS OR ANY OTHER DIMENSION!”

“Isn’t that JUST like a man?” Amy asked Cassy, even as she slid the bar back into its original position, letting the heavy steel door fall closed behind them, abandoning the three strangers and all their genitals in the humid back alley of the hotel. 

“Don’t worry,” Cassy promised Amy as they zigzagged unsteadily back through the hotel bar, “Considering what you drank, you’re not going to remember any of this in the morning.”


	6. The Lunar Excitation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sheldon and Amy recall their first meeting. Chapter by FoxPhile.

_“There are moments in one’s life - be one human or Homo Novus or even, I suppose, a homunculus like my dear friend, former roommate and yes, treasured colleague, Leonard Hofstadter, when one is suddenly struck by the vagaries of life.  One does not have to give credence to the concept of fate to be aware that one’s assumptions about how one’s life will transpire do not always resemble actual events.  Thus it was as I was waiting to retrieve baggage from the carousel at the Los Angeles International Airport that I found myself pondering how different my life had turned out compared to what I envisioned when I enrolled in University at the tender age of eleven.  Or, for that matter,  when I became the youngest winner of the Stevenson award at the age of fourteen, or when I won any of a number of awards leading up to the Nobel Prize in Physics.  All of this I will recount for you, dear reader in fascinating detail.”_

I grin, pleased at how exciting that sounded.  My autobiography is shaping up to be the riveting read I always knew it would be.  It sounds even better when read out loud than it does in my head.

“Seriously, Sheldon?  _That’s_ your opening paragraph?”

I am seated across from Amy Farrah Fowler, my girlfriend of many years, and now, in witness of the vagaries of which I’d written, my fiancé.  We are just returning from Stockholm where, in another of those whimsical coincidences Life hands us, we both received a Nobel Prize in our respective fields, in the same year, but for wholly separate achievements.  I don’t mind sharing the spotlight with Amy.  Really, I don’t.  After all, if it’s good enough for Pierre and Marie Curie, it’s good enough for Sheldon Lee Cooper and the soon to be Mrs. Cooper.  Although I assume she will opt for Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler-Cooper, or at the very least, Ms. Fowler-Cooper.

In yet another example of what some might term kismet, Amy and I are enjoying cups of tea in the very coffee shop where we met.  Of course, it’s not really kismet.  We were riding in a taxi on our way home from the airport when Amy nearly caused the taxi driver to have an accident.  As we rode down the street, she screamed that we had to stop “at the place where it all began.”

I can be as spontaneous and whimsical as the next guy, but this little detour means we’ll be walking the four remaining blocks to 2311 North Los Robles, dragging our luggage.  However, I’ve learned that occasionally indulging Amy’s flights of fancy is often the better part of valor, so I acquiesce to her impulse. The majority of the time, she is my perfect mate.  She is the lone woman who comes close to matching my intellect.  It’s sad, really that she’s expending her marvelous brain on something as trivial as the study of…well…brains, but I enjoy her company and I enjoy our engaging intellectual games and discussions, so I enjoy keeping her happy.   

“ _Sheldon!_ ” 

I realize that is the third time Amy has said my name, and she is saying it somewhat stridently.  My momentary daydream has distracted me from attending her, which, as I have come to learn, is socially unacceptable.  The correct social convention is, therefore, to apologize for my lapse.

“I’m sorry, Amy.  I was distracted for a moment when I should have been paying attention to you.  Please forgive my lapse.  You were saying?”

Amy sighs.  She seems to do that quite frequently, especially when she is fatigued, as she no doubt is from the nearly sixteen hours we’ve spent travelling.  It’s entirely illogical that she wants to extend that time with this capricious stopover, but again, I often find it wiser to indulge than to argue.

“Sheldon,” she continues, “your opening paragraph is incredibly self-centered _and_ you insult Leonard by calling him a homunculus.  You might want to tone down the self-aggrandizement a bit and remember how much Leonard hates that term.  He won’t be happy if you include that in your book.”

“But Amy,” I counter, “an autobiography is, by definition, self-centered.  If I’m writing a book about my life, how can I be otherwise?  As to the term homunculus, not only is it accurate, but Penny uses it all the time.”

Amy sips her tea and shakes her head.  I can see another lecture coming on, and while I appreciate that Amy has been incredibly helpful in advancing my understanding of appropriate human social interactions, I’m tired as well and I don’t really have the energy for a lesson right now.  I need to come up with a diversionary gambit.       

“We’ve discussed this before, Sheldon.  When Penny uses the term, it’s an endearment; a word or name that takes on special meaning between pair-bonded adults.  Coming from his girlfriend, Leonard finds it cute.  He does not have those feelings if anyone else uses the term.  He will not appreciate your application of the term to him in your opening paragraph.  He’ll be humiliated and insulted.”

“I see.” I respond in a conciliatory manner.  “Amy,” I continue, launching my diversion, “Based on your earlier excitement, it is obvious you recall our first meeting here.  I wonder, looking back, if you see us as the same two people who were thrust into a date that was not of our own choosing?”

I’ve learned that recalling significant milestones in our relationship is considered romantic, and will nearly always cause Amy to relinquish whatever bone she is chewing.  Once again, it works like a charm.

“Of course I do, Sheldon!”  Amy’s eyes glisten a bit.  She can become quite emotional when pondering such events.   “When I think back on that day, I can’t help but wonder at how far we’ve both come.  We were a real couple of stick-in-the-muds, weren’t we?”

I smile.  I’m supposed to do that when recalling such moments, although I’m finding more often now that it’s a sincere reaction.  I do, in fact, recall our meeting with fondness.  So much has changed since then, and while I would not have believed it at the time, I acknowledge that the change is for the better.  My life is fuller and I am more content.  And I have my Nobel Prize.  Of course, I cannot directly correlate that accomplishment to my relationship with Amy, but neither can I dispute that her stimulating presence in my life improved my productivity in other areas.  Perhaps one day I should thank her. 

“If, by that comment, you mean that we were socially awkward,” I reply, “I would have to agree with you Amy.  In my defense, I must remind you that the event was not my idea.  It was those two loons, Howard and Raj, who contrived to enroll me in that ridiculous online dating site.”  I sip my tea as I recall the exact sequence of events.  “Although I believe they were somewhat chagrined at the outcome.  Howard’s exact words were ‘Good God, what have we done?’”

Amy laughs, and I laugh with her.  “They later told me,” I continue, “that had our date not worked out, they were prepared to fashion a mate for me out of spare body parts, a reference to the _Frankenstein_ mythos, of course.”  I laugh again. 

“That’s disgusting!” Amy exclaims, her nose crinkling up in a way that, surprisingly, I find absolutely adorable.  “Well, you must be doubly glad that it worked out.  Otherwise you would be sitting here with a woman with multiple visible surgery scars and bright streaks of white hair.” 

She grins and I laugh again, delighted that she is able to extend the reference so well.  I am not the only one who has learned valuable lessons from this relationship. 

“I can’t believe we sat here for four hours that day,” Amy says.  “We were so engrossed in conversation until you realized it was after 8 o’clock and you were going to be late for Laundry Night.”  Amy took another sip of her beverage and looked around the small shop.  “It was so cute; you practically knocked your chair over because you wanted to get out of here so fast.  But then you stopped just outside the door, turned around very deliberately and came back in to ask me for my e-mail address and phone number.  I think I knew then that we were meant to be together.”

I can’t help it, I snort a bit derisively.  I can take a bit of fancy, but this is too much.  “Really, Amy!  I’m surprised at you.  You cannot possibly mean that you had some sort of precognition about our relationship.  You’re a scientist.  You know that psychic abilities are nothing but a lot of hooey.  Why, we didn’t even sign the Relationship Agreement until a year and a half later.  How could you possibly have ‘known’ anything about a relationship that, as yet, did not exist?”

Amy is holding her teacup and smiling that grin that always makes me feel warm all over.  I recognize now that the feeling is, in part, sexual arousal.  I glance away a moment because it’s simply not appropriate here and when we get home, I’ll be too tired to engage in coitus. I want nothing more this evening than to unpack my luggage, sort things into the appropriate laundry bins, and then retire to our own bed.  Somehow while packing for our return trip, I came across a single clean sock with no partner.  I packed it, on the chance that its mate may still be at home or may somehow have found its way into Amy’s luggage.  I make a mental note to set it aside while unpacking to remind myself to search for the other sock.  Returning to thoughts of bed, I decide I may snuggle a bit with Amy in my arms, but that’s really all I have energy for tonight.  When I look back, the grin is still there, but I have myself under control. 

“I’m not suggesting I had a psychic vision or some sort of precognitive knowledge, Sheldon,” Amy replied. ”I’m simply saying I had a feeling that something momentous and potentially life-changing had occurred.  Haven’t you ever had that sort of feeling?  When you sense that something might hold a greater importance than it appears to on the surface?”

“I see.”  Again, I smile in response.  On some level I suppose I felt a similar sense of importance in my meeting with Amy.  After all, I allowed myself to be late for Laundry Night in order to be assured of communicating with her further.  “I believe I also had a sense that our friendship would be… satisfying.  I cannot imagine that my life would be the same had I been subjected, instead, to Howard and Raj’s backup plan.  I’m sure I much prefer your company to the Bride of Frankenstein.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment, Sheldon.”  She’s still grinning, and my control is slipping.

“It was meant as such, Sweetie.”

Amy’s jaw drops open and I cannot believe I let that slip.  Although the shop is nearly empty, we are, after all, in a public place.  I must be really fatigued.

“I’m sorry,” I say.  I can feel warm blood rising into my face and I realize that my embarrassment is visible.

“Don’t be, Sheldon.”  Amy extends a hand across the table, and lightly caresses my wrist before withdrawing her hand to wrap it back around her empty cup.  “While I understand you are still uncomfortable with public displays of affection, I have no difficulties with them - within reason, of course.  I’m not offended.  Although, I admit I would like you to come up with another term.  I know you learned ‘Sweetie’ from Penny, and of course, ‘MoonPie’ would not be appropriate.  Don’t you know any other terms of endearment?”

“As you know, Amy, I learned much in the early days of our relationship from Penny.  For example, I learned that most women are obsessed with shiny trinkets.  Shortly before you and I met, Penny made quite a fuss when Leonard gave her a ring that she wasn’t allowed to keep!  However, ‘Sweetie’ is the only applicable term of affection that I know.”

Amy holds up her left hand, obviously admiring her own new ring.  “Yes,” she agrees, “many of my sex are overly impressed by simple carbon allotropes that have been faceted and set in rare metals with a low reactive quality.”

I do so love how she thinks.  And I’m pleased that she likes the symbolic representation I chose to substantiate our engagement.  “Ah…you mean diamonds are a girl’s best friend?” I said, paraphrasing her statement using a popular cultural reference.

“Precisely.  But, let us return to the prior topic.  I think I would like for you to find a term of endearment that is unique to us, Sheldon, rather than simply recycling Penny’s standard term.”

I ponder this for a moment.  Remembering what Amy said about Penny’s term for Leonard, I decide to try something out.  “I don’t say it out loud very often, but there is a term I often apply when I think of you.”  I pause.  Some might consider the term insulting.  But when I think of it, it is affectionately.  Hopefully Amy will take it as intended.  “I think of you as my ‘vixen’.”

Amy’s broad grin tells me that I chose well.  “I like it!”  She exclaims, “I remember you called me that, years ago, when we engaged in that first social experiment about gossip.  I didn’t realize you still think of me that way.”

“You like the term?”  I confess I’m a bit surprised.  A vixen is, after all, a female fox, and the term denotes a certain sly, sneaky manner when applied to a human female.  On its face, it is far from complimentary. 

“Of course I like it!  It means you think I’m ‘foxy’.”

“Oh.” I respond; then a figurative light bulb flashes in my brain.  “Oh!  You see it as an indication of sexual attraction!” 

“Yes, of course I do.” Amy replies, but her tone leads me to think she is becoming unsure.  “Isn’t that how you mean it?”

“Absolutely.”  I’m nothing if not a good student.  I decide I need to think more about this later.  Amy’s studies in neurobiology often cross over into neuroscience and even psychology.  Perhaps my subconscious attaches a sexual innuendo to the term of which I’m not aware, however; I’m determined to navigate our discussion away from areas that may result in me exhausting myself later this evening.  Such activity, while undeniably pleasurable, is much better when approached with a full level of physical stamina.  I scan my memories of our original date for something suitable. 

“Amy,” I begin, “Do you recall we engaged in our first debate on the relative importance of Physics over Neurobiology here?”

Amy’s eyes narrow.  I may have jumped from the proverbial frying pan into the notorious fire. 

“I recall that I made a strong case that _applied_ Neurobiology outweighs _theoretical_ Physics in its immediate value to mankind,” she replies.  “You, as per usual, countered with the ridiculous assertion that Physics, as the study of all things in nature and the universe, encompasses and therefore supersedes all other disciplines.”

Then she smiles, and I realize she is only teasing.  This is a subject on which we long ago amicably agreed to disagree.

“I suppose if I had not excused myself at that moment to go to the Ladies Room,” she continues, “things might have been very different.”

“Indeed,” I respond, “When you got up I was concerned that the argument had convinced you to terminate the date.  I was prepared to follow you and attempt to convince you otherwise.  I suppose I should be happy that you did not engage in the same sort of escape artistry that Lucy so frequently employed on her dates with Raj.”

Amy laughs nervously. “To be honest, Sheldon,” she hesitates a moment, her eyes glancing down at her hands, which are absently tearing bits of paper off the protective sleeve of her cup, “I nearly did leave after that.”  She looks up again, her eyes focusing on mine.  “When I told you that coitus was off the table and you didn’t run off like every other man, I decided that you were either my soul-mate or some sort of perverted weirdo.  After that first argument, I was concerned, however, that we would not find common ground.  But while I was in the Ladies, my mother called.”

“Really?” I query when she pauses. “What did your mother say to convince you to stay?”

“Nothing.” Amy says, “I didn’t answer.  My mother always called precisely 30 minutes after the start of my annual dates.  She assumed, usually correctly, that by that time I was on my way home again.  I wanted the chance to show her that I could successfully interact socially with a member of the opposite sex, so I determined to move past the disagreement and continue to pursue our potential similarities instead of our differences.”

“Oh my,” I reflect, “Do you mean to say that, had your mother not called at that precise moment…”

“…we would not now be seated here.” She finishes for me. 

I find that I am stunned by this revelation and memories flash in my brain, flickering like an old-fashioned silent film.   A drunken Amy kissing me impulsively, initiating my first fascinating sensation of arousal stimulated by physical contact; the unfamiliar feelings of jealousy brought on by her brief dalliance with Stuart; my concern over her lingering illness, followed by a mixture of chagrin and intrigue when I found out she was, in fact, cured but continued to feign ill health in order to extend our growing intimacy; the first of many evenings spent engaging in increasingly passionate fantasy sex under the guise of a D&D love spell and the night several months later when the fantasy became wholly real.  All these memories might have never been.  The thought disturbs and distresses me.  I realize I am holding Amy’s hand, toying with the ring that I might never have placed there. 

“Sheldon?” Amy brings me back to the present and I force myself to smile.   “It’s okay, Sheldon.” She squeezes my hand and moves to intertwine our fingers.  The intimacy of such contact in this setting would normally make me uncomfortable, but I find that at the moment I’m grateful for the physical reassurance it provides.  “It all worked out okay,” Amy continues. “I didn’t leave and we found that our similarities far outweigh our differences.”

I nod and squeeze back before relinquishing the grip and drawing my hand back to my own empty cup.  “I thought you were the most interesting female I’d ever met.  I think I sensed immediately that your intelligence was on par with my own.  Moreover I… I thought your eyes and your hair were quite aesthetically pleasing while your choice of attire was refreshingly modest.  I wanted to know so much more about you.  I don’t know what I would have done if you disappeared.”  I attempt a laugh but even I recognize that it sounds forced.  “I suppose I might still be sitting here, awaiting your return.”

“I doubt that, Sheldon.”  Amy nods toward a young couple sitting two tables over.  “For one thing, we weren’t sitting at this table; we were closer to where those two are sitting.  Do you think maybe they are on a first date as well?”

I take a moment to study them.  It gives me time to compose myself and I realize, once again, how well this woman knows me.  “It’s probable,” I respond, “The young lady is toying with her hair while the gentleman is sitting with his legs slightly apart.  Both are indications of attraction and an open response to potential mating.”  I turn back and smile sincerely.  “Perhaps in ten years, those two will be sitting where we are.”

“Sheldon Lee Cooper!” Amy exclaims, “You’ve turned into a big romantic; do you know that?”

“I beg to differ, Amy Farrah Fowler,” I counter, “I’ve always been a romantic.  I just needed the right person to allow me to express it.”

At that moment Amy’s phone begins to ring.  I recognize the tone.  “Amy?  Did you neglect to inform your mother of our safe arrival?”

Amy rummages in her bag and retrieves the phone, unnecessarily confirming that the caller is, indeed her mother. 

“Of course I did, Sheldon.  I sent her a text as soon as the plane landed.”  She lightly swipes the face and holds the phone to her ear.  “Hello, Mother.”

I tune out the conversation, lost in my own thoughts.  I wonder where Amy and I will be in another ten years.  The thought of potential progeny crosses my mind and I realize it is a topic we need to discuss soon.  If Amy is willing, as I hope she is, we will need to begin the attempt right away as her fertile years will soon be drawing to a close.  I resolve to broach the topic with her over breakfast tomorrow.  

She ends the call and tucks her phone back into its place in her bag.  “Mother wanted to know if we would be coming to visit her tomorrow.  I reminded her that we promised to attend the pre-screening of Rajesh’s documentary on the Jupiter expedition in the evening, but I think we’ll be able to stop by for a bit before we go.”  Amy begins to gather our used cups and napkins so they can be disposed of properly.   “It’s too bad Mother can’t go with us.  Apparently the narrator is an actor from an old sitcom that she’s a big fan of.  She’s hoping we can get an autograph for her.  He played someone with the odd name of Chandler Bing.  Can you imagine that?”

I shake my head.  Taking Amy’s cue, I rise and begin collecting my luggage.  “Well,” I decide to make a one-time exception and try on my new term of endearment, “my little vixen,” I wink and continue, “shall we get going?  It’s been a very long day and I feel our bed calling.”

I realize my mistake when Amy’s sly grin returns.  The grin works its usual magic, however, and I begin to think that, just maybe, I have a reserve of energy I might call upon.  Perhaps I can introduce the topic of children on our walk home.  I find the idea of conceiving the next generation of Nobel Laureate Coopers tonight quite compelling.

“Someone seems in a hurry to get home,” Amy replies suggestively with a wink of her own as she stands and begins to gather her luggage.  “Sheldon,” she says as we walk out the door.  “When we first met, did you get the feeling we’d met sometime before?  I remember having such a strong sense that I knew you from somewhere, but I’ve never quite been able to put my finger on it.”

Gathering my own luggage, I give her my most indulgent grin.  “Amy, don’t be preposterous.”  I tap the side of my head.  “Eidetic memory, remember?  I can assure you, if we had met before, I would remember it.  Therefore, it never happened.”

As we begin our long trek down the street towards home, Amy comments, “Well, I’m certainly glad we did meet, Sheldon.  I can’t imagine my life without you in it.”

I decide that another one-time exception can’t hurt.  Releasing my luggage, I stop, turn, and gently grasp Amy’s arm.  Leaning down, I kiss her on the lips, right there on the street in Pasadena, California.  “I’m glad we met, too, Amy,” I say.  I grin as she looks up at me with surprise and something close to shock.  “And now I’ve kissed you where you’ve never been kissed before!”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


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